What Is a Home Health Score — and Why Does It Matter?

Quick answer: A home health score turns the records you keep about your house into one number, so you can see what needs attention first. In Steadwell it is a 0 to 100 score built from four weighted parts: asset condition (35%), overdue tasks (30%), warranty coverage (20%) and how complete your home profile is (15%). It reflects what you have recorded. It is not an inspection or an appraisal.

What a home health score is

Most homes have no single place that shows whether upkeep is on track. Tasks live in your head or on sticky notes, appliance ages are guesses, and warranty dates get lost in a drawer. A health score pulls those records together and gives you one number with a breakdown behind it.

The value is in the direction, not the exact figure. If the number drops, something in your records changed: a task went overdue, a warranty ran out, or an appliance aged into a later stage of its life. If it rises, you cleared something.

How Steadwell calculates it

Steadwell's home health score is a weighted average of four parts, each scored from 0 to 100. The weights are fixed, so you can see exactly what moves the result.

The four parts are weighted and added up, then rounded to a whole number. Empty parts start at a neutral value rather than zero, so a brand-new account with nothing in it scores about 58, which is graded At risk until you add records. That is a prompt to fill things in, not a verdict on your house.

How each part works

Assets (35%)

Each active asset gets a status, and the Assets score is the average of those statuses. Retired items and warranty-only records are left out.

The status comes from checks run in a fixed order, and the first problem found sets the status:

1. Needs attention: an open federal safety recall, a condition marked Failed or Needs Attention, a linked task that is past due, or a photo assessment that grades the item as failing.
2. Needs attention, based on age: an item past its expected lifespan, as long as it has a real install or purchase date.
3. Service due: a linked task due within 30 days, a photo assessment of poor, or an item that has used 75% or more of its expected lifespan (again, with a real date).
4. Heads up: a maintenance schedule with no service logged, or a condition of Fair.
5. Healthy: none of the above, and the item has a known age.

If an item has no install or purchase date, Steadwell may estimate its age from your home's year built, but an estimate alone never raises a red flag. The item shows as Age unknown instead, because Steadwell cannot back up a claim it cannot measure. Adding the real date, or running a photo-based condition assessment, replaces the guess with a reading.

Lifespan comes from the figure you enter on the asset, or a category default when you leave it blank. Current defaults include 12 years for appliances and water heaters, 20 for HVAC, 25 for roofing and 10 for safety devices.

Tasks (30%)

The part starts at 100 and drops by the share of your tasks that are past due. If half your tasks are overdue, the Tasks part is 50. Completed and cancelled tasks do not count against you, and a task scheduled for the future costs nothing. With no tasks at all the part sits at 70.

Warranties (20%)

Only warranties with a known expiry date count. An expired warranty counts in full, and one ending within 30 days counts as half. Even if every warranty has expired, this part bottoms out at 40, not zero. You can leave an individual warranty out of the score if you do not need that item covered.

Profile (15%)

Eight details earn equal credit: address, home type, year built, square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms, insurance company and insurance renewal date. Fill in six and this part is 75.

What the grades mean and how to raise your score

As an illustration, not a real account: Assets at 85, Tasks at 90, Warranties at 80 and Profile at 75 give 85 x 0.35 + 90 x 0.30 + 80 x 0.20 + 75 x 0.15, which is 84 and a Good grade.

To raise your score, work in this order:

1. Clear overdue tasks. Finish or reschedule anything past due. This moves the second-largest part.
2. Add real install dates. An actual date gives each asset a true reading instead of Age unknown.
3. Resolve open recalls. A recalled item reads Needs attention until the recall is closed. Check the manufacturer and the CPSC recall site for the remedy. Steadwell's recall alerts check your tracked items against federal CPSC recalls.
4. Track warranty dates. Add expiry dates so coverage is counted, and renew or replace coverage you still want before it lapses.
5. Finish your profile. Add the home details and your insurance renewal date.

How this varies by home and region

The score does not know where you live. It uses the lifespan on each asset, so the defaults are national averages, not figures for your climate. Roofs, HVAC equipment and water heaters can age faster or slower depending on heat, humidity, freeze-thaw cycles, hail, coastal salt air and water quality, and the appliance lifespan guide shows typical ranges.

If your local conditions are harder than average, or a local contractor tells you a system should last a shorter or longer time, change the Expected Lifespan on that asset. The same goes for an item you have maintained unusually well. A photo assessment is the other way to correct the estimate, because it records what the item actually looks like today.

What the score does not tell you

The score only sees what you have recorded. A leaking roof you have never logged will not lower it, and a spotless score does not mean the house has been inspected. The American Society of Home Inspectors' standards describe an inspection as an examination of visually observable, readily accessible systems and components at the time of the inspection. The score is an ongoing view of your own records, which makes it a good way to decide where to spend your time, but not a replacement for an inspection or an appraisal.

The factor-by-factor breakdown is part of the Plus and Pro plans. The pricing page lists what each plan includes.

Frequently asked questions